Descriptions in Stories: Fine Prose or Not?

[3113]

McKenna has posted #6 of common writing mistakes and points out, rightly, that "Fiction is movement. Description is static" and that "readers are interested in the story -the movement- not your fine prose."

Yet I find so many readers interested in books with rich descriptions, that I kinda wonder if this is really true--though, granted, budding writers often can't see the forest for the trees, and their descriptions might not be fine prose at all And, granted, we write erotica where readers often want us to chuck the pretty descriptions and get to the "good stuff"--after all they've got their bottle of KY waiting, right?

Still. Below are four descriptions. You might or might not recognize them from books you've read. Do they keep the story moving or, being a description, make it go static? Which ones do you like or don't like and why? Is it because the writer seems to be indulging in pretty pose and the story has gone static? Or, to the contrary, have you been captured and captivated by the pretty prose and the writer could go on for pages and you wouldn't mind? Obviously, these are from very good writers who, presumably, knew what they were doing and had a reason to write the description as they did. Still, I'd like to know, as modern readers, what you think. I'll add a poll to see which one most of you like best.

Book #1:

The rags of the squalid ballad-
singer fluttered in the rich light that showed the goldsmith's
treasures, pale and pinched-up faces hovered about the windows where
was tempting food, hungry eyes wandered over the profusion guarded
by one thin sheet of brittle glass--an iron wall to them; half-naked
shivering figures stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden
stuffs of India. There was a christening party at the largest
coffin-maker's and a funeral hatchment had stopped some great
improvements in the bravest mansion. Life and death went hand in
hand; wealth and poverty stood side by side; repletion and
starvation laid them down together....But it was London

Book #2:

When we arrived it was quite empty, except for a policeman sitting near the door, the wife of the proprietor back of the zinc bar, and the proprietor himself....There were long benches, and tables ran across the room, and at the far end a dancing-floor.

Book #3:

On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-dÕoeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.

Book #4:

A golden afternoon of late sunshine lay warm and drowsy upon the hidden land between. In the midst of it there wound lazily a dark river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, arched over with willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of willow-leaves. The air was thick with them, fluttering yellow from the branches; for there was a warm and gentle breeze blowing softly in the valley, and the reeds were rustling, and the willow-boughs were creaking.

 

[TE999]

#1 was wordy and overwrought...#2 was rather sparse IMO.

Descriptions set the scene in a story as scenery does on a stage. The pulp writers went on for several paragraphs setting the scene before starting the action or introducing a character. They were being paid a penny a word, of course, but the imagery is striking even today.

 

[Handley_Page]

They all say Something about what's going on, although 'London' is very evocative but a bit staccato; an intro to a much longer piece, I think.

Book 2 was a bit tongue in cheek, but set the scene.

I liked Book 3. There was an element of humour in it.

Book 4 set a very early-autumn scene.

 

[bronzeage]

All of them were good, but its hard to judge when taken out of the full work.

How much imagery is needed depends on the pace and nature of the plot. Once a style of narrative is chosen, it's best to stick with it.

Raymond Chandler and Charles Dickens wrote for different audiences. There is no reason to say one is fine and the other not.

 

[champagne1982]

Books one, three and four were as if the author was channelling an inner poet, the only problem being the poet was of another era and just a little prosaic in presentation.

Book two was too sparse to lose my concious thought inside the description. It was there, though I would hardly call it a case of grandiose prosidy.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I liked number two. I clearly set the scene without boring me.

 

[penandpaper]

I enjoyed 2 and 3. I would assume in two that if there was character interaction, then they would be fleshed out. As for three, I've always thought good writers could give a feeling to a setting by summarizing a school of thought, a character stereotype, or an age bracket.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Terry Pratchett believes that a character is better described by what he says and thinks than by pages of what he looks like. I'm in agreement.

 

[oggbashan]

Most of us write short stories for Literotica.

All of these extracts would be acceptable for a novel but NOT for a short story where every word should be essential.

Og

 

[McKenna]

I chose #3, but I'm a sucker for alliteration. It was pretty prose, descriptive, but not boring. It rolled of my tongue, and in, what, three? sentences the author set the scene nicely. I would be ready at that point to meet the characters.

However...

Had the author gone into 2-3 pages of description, I might have skimmed ahead to get to the characters or some kind of action.

That said, none of the descriptions were overly long. I interpret the advice from the author of the Mistake's book to mean, "Don't spend 5 chapters describing the scene, and one relaying the action." Or something like that. And really, what does it hurt to pepper your descriptions throughout a chapter instead of front-loading them at the beginning? When that happens, it feels like a forced feeding. I'm not in to that.

 

[McKenna]

Most of us write short stories for Literotica.

All of these extracts would be acceptable for a novel but NOT for a short story where every word should be essential.

Og

"Less is more" and all that, I assume. I imagine when we leave room for the reader to fill in the blanks, they are a bit more satisfied; it engages them, pulls them in, makes them want to figure out what's going on. It leaves them wanting more, which always leaves the door open for a sequel.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I picked #2 becuz I figured it had to be Chandler or Hemingway, and the example resonates with my own style of writing. I pare description down to the core as poetry does.

 

[3113]

All of them were good, but its hard to judge when taken out of the full work.

Absolutely true--and another "granted." Certainly their descriptions match their purposes. In #1 (London) the author wants the reader to see the social dictomy of London that they might miss or not notice as well as feeling the chaos and bustle of the city, and so emphasizes the rich/poor divide; #2 (bar) wants the reader to feel the emptiness of the bar, and the bare description gives them that. #3 (food and liquor) wants the reader to feel the gaiety and magic of the party, so the food is "harlequin" and "bewitching" and the reader feels all the festiveness of the party; #4(Willow) wants to give the reader the same languid feeling that characters in the grove feel, and so lulls them with that repetitive "Willow, willow, willow--" the words themselves are carefully picked to make the passage read slow and quiet, like the grove.

All of them are right for the work and what they're trying to get across. My question was only to see how they appealed to you on a personal level, as a reader.

Most of us write short stories for Literotica. All of these extracts would be acceptable for a novel but NOT for a short story where every word should be essential.

Wrong. IMHO, the only one of those four that might not fit into a short story might be the first. You are missing the fact that in at least three out of the four, the words have been picked very carefully and *essentially.* They are not wasting words at all.

All four writers I picked also wrote short stories and these examples could have come from any one of their short fiction.

Now, of course, you have every right to read their short stories and say, "You wasted time on this description, it should have been edited out--" you are entitled to that opinion, but I'd still argue that you're wrong. Depending on what the story is about and the point of the description every word of those descriptions could be argued as essential and not a waste of words, no matter if the work is long or short.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

I chose #2 because the prose is lean and muscular without being terse. It takes some people a lifetime to learn how to concentrate that much energy into short, concise sentences.

 

[Verdad]

I'm going with the boring answer: they're all as good as well as they perform their task in the story. So long as they do, I'm not an impatient reader and don't belong to the cult of terseness. I'll gladly luxuriate in passages of description if they truly are beautifully crafted and if they truly do advance the story.

 

[SimonBrooke]

McKenna has posted #6 of common writing mistakes and points out, rightly, that "Fiction is movement. Description is static" and that "readers are interested in the story -the movement- not your fine prose."

Yet I find so many readers interested in books with rich descriptions, that I kinda wonder if this is really true--though, granted, budding writers often can't see the forest for the trees, and their descriptions might not be fine prose at all And, granted, we write erotica where readers often want us to chuck the pretty descriptions and get to the "good stuff"--after all they've got their bottle of KY waiting, right?

Most of us write short stories for Literotica.

All of these extracts would be acceptable for a novel but NOT for a short story where every word should be essential.

While most of us post short stories on Lit, we don't necessary only or mainly write for lit - and anyone who reads any of my stories with a bottle of KY waiting is going to be mightily disappointed, because I often deliberately leave out the good part. But description in narrative serves a purpose (or should do so); it sets a scene, and frames the action that takes place. Personally, I tend to not to use much description in short stories, but here are two descriptions I have used. Here's John from Workshop:

If you were going to write about John in a short story, you wouldn't call him John, for a start. You'd give him a slightly exotic name with a hard edge to it. Something scandinavian might do - Eirik, perhaps, or Thorsteig. I don't even now believe his name really was John. People in his trade - in what I assume his trade to be - probably live most of their lives under one assumed identity or another.

If you were going to describe John in a short story, too, you'd draw him younger, and taller; you'd make him jump off the page dramatic, to introduce the reader immediately to the idea that here was an unpredictable man, a powerful man, a dangerous man.

But you didn't see that in him when you first met him. His appearance, like his name, was nondescript. He arrived in a rusty white ford van; he wore baggy, charcoal grey jogging pants, and an oversize, tatty charcoal army jersey. He wasn't very tall. His gaze was quiet rather than commanding, from rather pale grey eyes in a weather-beaten face. In fact it was his quietness which I came to realise was his defining characteristic; his stillness, his nondescriptness, his ability to fade into the background and not be noticed, even in a small room with only a few other people.

And here's Catriona's bedroom:

The heavy wooden door opened slowly, framing and revealing the room like a panning camera. Plain white walls, varnished pine floor. A wide bed with a cast iron frame topped with gleaming brass knobs. She knelt on it, naked, blindfolded, her face bowed between her chained, outstretched arms, half hidden in the tumble of her hair; her knees spread obscenely wide by their own fetters, stretching and parting her labia above her little tuft of soft pubic fur, revealing the darker pigment of her anus. Her beautiful skin gleaming in the soft evening light, marred and mottled with bruises. By the chain splaying her left leg, an unopened box of condoms.

Both these descriptions open their respective stories. They have two purposes: to capture the reader's attention, and to set the mood for the piece. Description can also be used to pace, as here, in IOU:

She shrugged off the heavy leather jacket, and hung it over a chair. She started to unbutton her blouse... The floor of his kitchen was paved with flagstones. Gray flagstones, neatly levelled and jointed. Probably they were modern, but you couldn't be sure... she folded her blouse on the seat of the chair, dropped her bra on top of it, unbuttoned her jeans...

By focussing on what the girl is looking at I'm deliberately slowing down the action. I'm also telling you she isn't looking at him. I'm telling you she's looking at the floor, and in doing that I'm implicitly telling you that she's not going into this confidently.

Description can do a lot of jobs in a short story. It can be a finely crafted construction enjoyable simply for its playful use of language; it can pace; it can give the reader insight into the characters emotions. Most of all it can set mood.

I have to admit I wasn't impressed by McKenna's little lecture. Too much description, obviously, leaves the reader with too little work to do. But too little leaves the reader with no framework within which to work. Creating a narrative is a co-operative endeavour between reader and writer, a dance. And if the reader is to supply the weft of the fabric, it's essential that the writer first provide the warp.

 

[McKenna]

I have to admit I wasn't impressed by McKenna's little lecture. Too much description, obviously, leaves the reader with too little work to do. But too little leaves the reader with no framework within which to work. Creating a narrative is a co-operative endeavour between reader and writer, a dance. And if the reader is to supply the weft of the fabric, it's essential that the writer first provide the warp.

Hi Simon, I don't believe we've met. I'd like to point out it's not my "little lecture," but rather the lecture of the author of the book from which I have posted the excerpts. If you're going to malign me for something, at least do it for something I've actually written.

 

[3113]

I'd like to point out it's not my "little lecture," but rather the lecture of the author of the book from which I have posted the excerpts.

Also, these are "common" writing mistakes. And we will totally grant that going overboard with descriptions to the detriment of the story is very much a mistake that many writers, even fine, good writers make.

The only reason I posted this thread is because I find that there's a slight disconnect between this particular advice and the strange reality. It isn't that the author is wrong. Extensive descriptions can stop the story dead. But what they seem to be wrong about is that readers don't like it when writers "jack" their story to indulge themselves in such descriptions.

I'm finding, strangely and disturbingly, that readers actually seem to like self-indulgent writers. Or at the very least, are blind to the fact that the writer is being self-indulgent and getting off course. We can wag our finger and say "This is bad for the story" and be right. But it's a little like saying, "Putting too much frosting on a cupcake is bad because it overshadows the cake." True. But that doesn't stop "modern" eaters from loving cupcakes with lots of frosting, to the point where some shops are selling little cups of frosting and only frosting! (yuck!).

Putting it another way, it may not always be good for the story, but if readers eat it up, can we really quarrel with it? We might as well discuss how to do it so well that readers and story will both get what they want.

So, I posted some examples of really good frosting

 

[McKenna]

Also, these are "common" writing mistakes. And we will totally grant that going overboard with descriptions to the detriment of the story is very much a mistake that many writers, even fine, good writers make.

The only reason I posted this thread is because I find that there's a slight disconnect between this particular advice and the strange reality. It isn't that the author is wrong. Extensive descriptions can stop the story dead. But what they seem to be wrong about is that readers don't like it when writers "jack" their story to indulge themselves in such descriptions.

I'm finding, strangely and disturbingly, that readers actually seem to like self-indulgent writers. Or at the very least, are blind to the fact that the writer is being self-indulgent and getting off course. We can wag our finger and say "This is bad for the story" and be right. But it's a little like saying, "Putting too much frosting on a cupcake is bad because it overshadows the cake." True. But that doesn't stop "modern" eaters from loving cupcakes with lots of frosting, to the point where some shops are selling little cups of frosting and only frosting! (yuck!).

Putting it another way, it may not always be good for the story, but if readers eat it up, can we really quarrel with it? We might as well discuss how to do it so well that readers and story will both get what they want.

So, I posted some examples of really good frosting

I've read some of this author's advice and thought to myself, "Yeah, what a crock!" But I try to take it with a grain of salt. I mull it over. I pick on it. I may even accept it --after the initial sting, of course, where I recognize my own faults and errors in writing and am not too happy to have it pointed out.

Sometimes I find a nugget of truth that's applicable to something I've written; sometimes not. At that point I just store it away to examine another day.

On a personal note, I don't disagree with descriptive prose; quite the contrary. I am most guilty of overly describing not the scene, but the psychological state of the characters I write (I tend to live in their heads, oy!). That said, I have to remember to tone it down enough to move the story along, or pepper the descriptions throughout the story so that the reader doesn't hit a block of descriptive paragraphs so long and twisted they forget the story line.

The bad thing about posting these excerpts is that I end up feeling personally attacked, and strangely compelled to defend the author - or, at the very least, point out different ways to interpret his advice. No one likes to be told their opus needs work; editing stings. Having someone point out our mistakes, stings. It makes us defensive. If I weren't edited every single day of my life I'd be a bit more sensitive about it, but I'm learning to grow a thick skin. That, and I'm learning when to argue it's a "stylistic choice," and not necessarily a right or wrong way of doing things.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm going with the boring answer: they're all as good as well as they perform their task in the story. So long as they do, I'm not an impatient reader and don't belong to the cult of terseness. I'll gladly luxuriate in passages of description if they truly are beautifully crafted and if they truly do advance the story.

Description serves many uses; I notice William Styron uses humorous description when he pulls his punches. I tried it in my latest story, and it works well to make the tale easily digestible. A long scene is as wearisome as a long sentence or paragraph. Its okay to stop and smell the roses and watch the hummingbirds while you catch your breath.

 

[3113]

No one likes to be told their opus needs work; editing stings. Having someone point out our mistakes, stings. It makes us defensive.

Absolutely true. And the biggest problem is that writing happens in a vacuum. It's just us and the writing. We don't usually have a co-author, an editor and some researcher leaning over our shoulders discussing the story with us as we write it. We do all that hard work on our own, and then we proudly show it off and the people we show it off to take it apart. Of course that's gonna hurt.

It's kinda like the old story about baking the bread and no one wants to help bake it (in the story they all want to help eat it). In this case, no one wants to help bake it, but we feel like they all want to say what's wrong with it once it's baked

Unfair as we do ask for their honest opinion and need it if we're going to get the bread baked up right.

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

Most of us write short stories for Literotica.

All of these extracts would be acceptable for a novel but NOT for a short story where every word should be essential.

Og

First time I'm writing on this board. The question sparked my interest and ITA with the above answer, but not only for short stories. Any of the above extracts could be wonderful in a short story, or novel, depending on how essential the discription is. If I'm completely engrossed in a story the discription will flow along, but if I'm not pulled in with the action, well maybe it's just me but pretty prose doesn't impress me.

Then again I write character driven fantasy. I tend to add discrition only as necessary.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Criticism is like being told to pull your zipper up or reminded that we're mortal. Plus it trains us to recognize bonafide problems and defend against personal taste disguised as 'error.' If your best argument against the criticism is 'TROLL!,' the criticism may be right.

 

[driphoney]

I liked them all. I'm weird. I like #1. I felt like something interesting was being said or about to be said, something outside my element. #2 felt like a pop novel. I like pop novels but nothing deeper seemed like it was about to happen. I felt a bit in a vacuum with #3, like I was reading a description in the middle. I might like the story, but I couldn't tell. #4 fought for my first pick. Maybe because I just got done reading Laurie Lee and my mind is a little in that place.

And can people PLEASE quit picking on McKenna for being kind enough to give us thoughtful thread content to ponder? He didn't write the book, he's just been willing to repost and post a particular fiction writer's tips because we begged him to!

Thanks McKenna and 3113 for taking the time to help us grow and contemplate and maybe re-think our writing craft.

 

[driphoney]

"Less is more" and all that, I assume. I imagine when we leave room for the reader to fill in the blanks, they are a bit more satisfied; it engages them, pulls them in, makes them want to figure out what's going on. It leaves them wanting more, which always leaves the door open for a sequel.

I'm always amazed when I realize this had happened to me! All of a sudden I'll be reading a juicy bit of dialogue and be so emotionally sucked into it and it hits me: the author has let me construct the nuances, and over time those have built and built until this story is as much my own creation as the authors, that another person reading it has probably built a slightly different world.

I always go, "How do they do that?" I would love to figure it out.